Today, in a very odd article, Glenn Peoples and Billboard warned artists that releasing content exclusively with the artist owned Tidal would hurt their showing on the Billboard/Neilson Hot 100 chart. Peoples helpfully estimates just how much lower certain artists would rank on the Billboard Hot 100. For instance he specifically calls out Beyonce on this point noting that her single “7/11” would fall 8 places from #44 to #52. Given that Tidal’s relaunch was the brainchild of her husband Jay Z, this seems a little like throwing down the gauntlet. Since when is Billboard in the artist warning business? And why start warning artists in the run up to The Billboard Music Awards? It all seems odd.

Unless of course Billboard and Nielsen somehow have a dog in the fight. I mean shouldn’t Billboard charts be service neutral? Why should the charts favor (as Billboard readily admits) one streaming service over another? Why would “The Bible of the Music Business” make it harder for upstarts that want to challenge the incumbent and dominant market players in the streaming business? Why would Billboard use it’s bully pulpit to seemingly discourage use of a particular streaming service?

Now I’m just speculating here, but is there some other reason that Billboard has come out so strongly in support of certain streaming services? Is it possible that Billboard has developed financial relationships with these companies? And if they have, wouldn’t this make them complicit in anti-competitive behavior by the incumbent streaming services? Seems to me that someone should look into this.